House of Fiction

Abstract: everything written in courir new are quotes from different feminists and/or songwriters

words in bold italics are lines from Ani Difranco’s “House of Fashion”

lines in [ ] taken from different Ani Difranco songs

the rest, and subsequently neither courir new, nor in italics, nor in [ ], are my own words

“feminism is always more than a body of academic texts... “ (bell hooks)

1,2

top, bottom

up, down

the rhythm in which she is caught

a beast in a cage

a pet in his hands

ah – beware of her dangerous claws

ah – go touch her very soft skin

the bars, the bonds,

the rhythm that dominates the song

the boy

always gets to play

the tom

“It is a curious thought that the human cortex has been generally employed for make-believe, pretense, pretension. Pretending to be superior because of “x” nationality, pretending to be better because i have six TV sets, a bigger house, a better car than you, pretending to be better than you a woman, I a man. Pretending that We Are Right because we have nastier and more totally destructive weapons than They have.

Why all this deadly pretense?

Is it not possible that the cortex might have a real and positive function such as the search for truth?” (Leonora Carrington)

...but truth is elsewhere to be found

not on the inside and not on the outside

and not inbetween

it is wrapped inside the spider's web

it is the spider's web

i had to leave the house of television

to start noticing the clouds

it's amazing the stuff you see

when you finally shed that shroud

THE RESISTING TELEVISION CONSUMER

There's more than two ways of thinking

there's more than one way of knowing

there's more than two ways of being

there's more than one way of going somewhere

(“Restist This Psychic Death”, Bikini Kill)

i had to leave the house of conformity

in order to make art

i had to be more and less true

to learn to tell them apart

art is why i get up in the morning

but my definition ends there

(“Out of Habit”, A. Difranco)

today, the singer stepped out of

the poster on my wall

wearing three inch platforms

just to make herself tall

and she said:

we're only tourists on this planet

until we go back to where we belong

so we keep taking pictures

and write poems and songs

1,2

top, bottom

left, right

the beauty of a man

is never the beauty of a woman

is never the beauty of a man

high heels vs. high hopes

eye liner vs. hard liner

make up vs. make believe

the right hand : moral

the left had : dirty

together they draw images:

the most colorful two-color pictures, look!

lOOk aGAIn!

I had to leave the house of fashion

and go forth naked from its doors

[a guy tried to rub up agains me]

[my cunt is built like a wound that won't heal]

[i want to pull out my tampon and start splashing it around]

[we are made to bleed and scab and heal and bleed again]

[i woke up one morning thighs covered in blood]

'cause women should be allies

and not competitors

“get off your catwalk

i want you to talk

i want you to be the seer

instead of the seen”

(“Another Mystery”, Dar Williams)

“i want to be more than a pretty girl”

(“Not A Pretty Girl”, Ani Difranco)

“Are women human? [...]”

“Women are not aliens. Take away men and we will not automatically loose our fire and intelligence and sex drive; we do not form hierarchical, static, insectlike societies that are dreadfully inefficient. We do not turn into a homogeneous Thought Police culture where meat-eating is banned and men are burned in effigy every full moon. Women are not inherently passive or dominant, maternal or vicious. We are all different. We are people.” (Nicola Griffith)